I like living. I've sometimes been wildly, despairingly, acutely miserable, racked with sorrow, but through it all I still know quite certainly that just to be alive is a grand thing.
- Agatha Christie

Monday, June 21, 2010

Being a wicked witch for the day.

In my form 3 class today, I entered with a stern face clutching the examination papers I had recently marked. I put my teaching log on the table and after that when all had sat comfortably on their chair, I could sense this uneasy silence from this usually rowdy class. I know I managed to petrify them.

I handed to them their marked sheets and I could see some red shade on their faces, the ink on their paper reflecting on their faces, none was all too happy as I was still in my wicked-witch-of-the-west mode. I called up 9 of my students; a mixture of the weak and brilliant ones while looking at my record book, told them to stand, looked at them one by one but none dared to look back at me. I could hear their hearts beating in unison and the smell of trepidation was quickly looming the air. I could not stop the feeling of pleasure at the thought of them feeling daunted to what lurked ahead of them. It amused me so much I nearly smiled but I kept my cool, constrained myself and continued by repeating their names plus mentioning some numbers.

As soon as I finished, I broke out into a laughter, an elegant one mind you, the hehehehe hiik made famous by Saloma. All eyes that were once utterly infatuated with their desks seemed to turn their gazes on me..each one in a state of confusion. Has she gone mad? I dare say they thought that. And so, I told the others whose bottoms were still fixed on their chair to give a huge round of applause to these students whom were standing. "Why, teacher? " a boy asked. Just the question I was expecting to hear. So I said, they made a significant improvement in their recent English exam and I wanted to show them off.

They all clapped, after digesting the info, loudly for their friends' achievement. I could not have felt any more than satisfied to see those wide proud grins on their faces! Purely gratifying indeed.

3 comments:

Hi Rosfida, ha ha, love teachers like you.I really envy your students marks....to think I was happy if see 55%, my mom too.I have never passed 65% in my maths all the years till high school....But later became a computer main frame systems analyst with 3 computer languages under my belt, cobol, fortran 1 & 2, and Neat 3.

And my mother kept all the loving letters my teachers gave her, and of course not one praised her son. She only destroyed them when I got my first job, and gave her half my salary, 'to say thank you'.

The letters? Everyone has similar meanings, roughly, 'your son has no hope, no future', arhaaaaa ha ha.Somehow mothers have faith in their sons, and I somehow exceeded her expectations, shocking my self and my father, ha ha.

Oh ya, one of the teachers was my mother's friend, who never had hopes for me...and when I was flying around in my company's Corporate Jet, she over coffee told her....my mom was proud of me. Her son who never got 65% for maths. Ha ha.Have a nice day, Lee.

I was once these students. Never had a string of As to gloat about..Even during college I think I managed to get not more than 2 As. So, I know how it feels when you are never appreciated even though you have improved yourself although not as much that would grant you some pride from teachers.

I DO NOT want to be like some of my teachers or other people who had put me down when I got a string of 'F's and 'D's to boot. Like you have always said...I want to be that teacher who inspires..